Wednesday, June 16, 2010

I used to teach piano, you may know. Just beginners, though--don't want to mess anyone up too badly, right?

I had some awesome piano students. I think they entertained me more than I ever taught them piano. But hopefully they learned something. Kids are funny. Some of my students LOVED me, couldn't stand to see me move away. Others seemed to think I was a crazy lady. They never came right out and said it, but I have my suspicions. Let me tell you about some of my faves:

MCKENNA was deathly afraid of dogs, so I always had to make sure our dog was nowhere in sight when she came over or she couldn't even have a lesson due to excess emotional trauma.

KENDRA was somewhere off in left field or something. I never did completely figure her out. She was 11 and I pretty much taught her the same lesson every week because she wasn't able to grasp a concept for forever. And even when I thought she had gotten it I'd find out a few lessons later, when she acted like she'd never heard it before in her life, that she hadn't quite yet. I got a lot of blank stares from Kendra.

Whenever she saw me at the school, though, she would yell, "HI planno teacherrrr!" I don't think she had any idea what my name was, but she knew I was her planno teacher. So that's good.

Her lesson was right after school and she would always walk the half-block to my house in extreme bladder distress and then come panting up to my door, pleading desperately to use my bathroom, as if she thought I might just turn her down. One time she had to stop in the middle of the street and put down her backpack just to get a better grip on her full crotch-hold. It may have been that day that I mentioned she might want to go at school first so she wouldn't be so uncomfortable walking up the street.

"Okay, (...pant, pant...tightencrotchhold...pottydance), but," she says, "can I just use yours for today?!"

Oh, Kendra. Kendra, Kendra, Kendra. Of course you can use mine. *Closedeyesheadshake*.

ROMAN. Everybody called him ROman except for his mom. She called him RoMAHN. I was always undecided on whether I should go with the accepted American pronunciation or the obviously correct Latin pronunciation. So I pretty much flip-flopped every other time-ish. Come to think of it, he prob thought I was a weirdo even before this next incident ever occurred.

During one lesson Roman looked at me quizzically and said I had a hair on my lip. Wait. We need pictures for this story. Here, I'll act it out in pictures.